Beyond the Gate
by IngaHerovitz
Summary: Ed comes back to Resembool with some interesting news. He's done some extra snooping when it comes to Truth, and it turns out that there's a lot of mysteries he and Al have to figure out.
1. The Identity of Truth

Behind the Gate

A/N: _So, I have to admit, this is kind of an extended headcanon, which means there's not a ton of plot and the characters may be OOC, but the main point is the idea. The point was I wanted to explore what exactly happened when Ed destroyed his Gate and whether there were any secondary consequences. This was the result, I hope you like it._

_I have no idea what genre this is, so I just put it in mystery/suspense. If you have a better idea of what it is, let me know._

_Disclaimer: No, I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist._

Ed pushed himself off the ground slowly, rubbing his head and scowling up at his friend.

"What was that one for?" he mumbled, picking up the wrench that had practically knocked him out. He held it up towards the balcony. "Do you want this back or can I hide it somewhere far away?"

His childhood friend glared back at him. "That was for running off again. Al, Granny and I have been worried sick. You can't just go off by yourself and not tell anyone. You've barely been back three weeks and you're already trying to leave again! What were you even doing? You were gone all week!"

Ed grimaced, looking at the ground guiltily. "I…had some questions I wanted to answer."

Winry sighed, knowing that that was all she'd get out of him. "Well as long as you're home, feel free to help with dinner." She started back towards the door. "Oh, and I do want that wrench back."

Ed allowed himself a small laugh. Winry always stayed the same. He slipped the wrench into his pocket and started walking towards the front door of the house. He would eventually tell Winry where he had gone. He would tell Winry and Al and Granny and probably Mustang and Teacher. It was a big discovery, after all.

After dinner that night, everyone gathered in the family room. It had been clear to everyone that Ed had had something big on his mind, and they expected to hear about it.

It took him some time to start. They sat quietly for a long few minutes while Ed simply looked at them and they stared back expectantly. Finally, he began.

"I've been thinking recently about how I destroyed my Gate," he said. "Because as much as it made sense when I first decided to do it, the actual concept shouldn't have worked at all."

Everyone caught their breath. The last time Ed had questioned the limits of alchemy, he had lost his arm, leg and brother.

"If alchemy comes from the gate, then what is alchemy? Is it a power source? Is it some creature that demands sacrifice in order to do our bidding? And if so, then why is it the gate that gives us this power?

"Well, I decided that to figure this out I had to study the origin of alchemy. Al and I studied it a little bit, to see if it would help get our bodies back, but it didn't seem to help, so we abandoned it. Lucky thing we did, too, because we would have been disappointed. The thing is is that there's practically nothing written about it. I've been in the library at Central all week and people just don't talk about the origin of alchemy. There are mentions of the Gate, seeing as there had to be some people who were crazy enough to do human transmutation back then, but that's about it. It was never studied.

"And that doesn't make sense. Normally, when people have skills, we know why. People who are flexible have stretched out muscles. People with good aim have the finer motor skills or, like Lieutenant Hawkeye, they train themselves. With alchemy it should be the same but it's not.

"Well, without any actual books on the origin of alchemy, I decided that I'd just have to break it down myself. It's not that simple, but I think I've figured it out.

"First, there's the issue of Truth. When I met Truth he identified himself as Truth, the World, sometimes God, and you (meaning me, of course). But what's wrong with that statement? Well, God is supposed to be a lot of things. A few of those things are omniscient and omnipotent. _But._ When I asked Truth if he could show me more of what was beyond the gate, he said 'I cannot'. When I asked why, he just told me he could only show me what I paid for. What can we get from this? Truth isn't omnipotent. He relies on what we sacrifice to do things. Therefore? Truth isn't God.

"So what is he? We'd have to go with one of his other definitions. But this is where things are a little simpler. Because Truth only said he was _called_ God and the World and Truth. Which means that if he isn't God, he probably isn't those things either. So, I should stop calling him Truth. Who is he then? Well what's the one thing he called him self for sure? Me. He pointed at me and said 'I am also you.'"

Winry interrupted. "But how can he be you?"

"Good question. We can assume that Truth (I'll keep calling him that for the sake of not confusing everyone. If I started calling him 'me' and 'I' that would just be weird) does not have my same viewpoints. He didn't judge that what I had thought was equivalent exchange for my mother was equivalent, so we obviously don't have the same idea of worth.

"Then there's the way he addressed me. He called me a 'silly alchemist who didn't know his place'. Unless Truth is a hypocrite, that means that he does know his place. And, judging from what he did to me, his place is to monitor my use of alchemy and take whatever it is I need to give.

"Finally there's the issue of what happened to the limbs that he took. When he took my arm and leg, he didn't just take them and hold them there while I was gone, my arm and leg literally became his arm and leg. What does this mean? He and I are the same person, but in different realities. There's no way a limb could just attach to some random person and keep growing the way my arm did.

"So I've come to a conclusion. Truth is a different version of me. More specifically, he is the version of me that guards my Gate. A gatekeeper, so to speak. My own personal doppelganger who takes a part of me every time he opens my Gate."

Al frowned. "But how does this change anything? It just means that Truth isn't who we thought he was."

"There you go!" Ed yelled defiantly. "That's the problem. So what? So what if Truth isn't the person we thought he was? But, there's a problem with that sentence. '_He_ isn't the _person_ we thought _he_ was'. We're using singular pronouns. But if the Truth that I saw was me, then the Truth you saw was you. The Truth Mustang saw was him. The Truth Teacher saw was her. My Truth certainly didn't have Teacher's organs.

"This means there's more than one Truth. One personal Truth for one person, guarding one personal Gate."

"And this is important because…" Winry interjected.

"Oh! I'm glad you asked!" Ed cried, pointing ecstatically at Al. "Where was his Truth?"

There was a moment of silence.

"Where was my…Truth?" Al repeated.

"Yes! Your body sat in front of your gate for years, conversing with my Truth, waiting for me to come back, yearning for your soul. So that begs the question: where was _your_ Truth.

"I think I have an answer. When my Truth took my limbs, they appeared on his body. Which means that when your Truth took your whole body, your whole body appeared on him. And for the brief amount of time that he took your soul, he had that, too."

They all stared at him.

"So… where is he now?" Ed asked, looking around expectantly.

No one answered.

Ed almost cackled, thrilled at his own genius. "Al's still got him, of course! He never left! When I got my arm back, my arm dissolved off of Truth's arm. But when I dragged Al out, nothing like that happened. _In fact._" Ed was practically bouncing. "No one opened the gate for us. It just opened, all by itself."

"I thought your Truth opened the gate for you." Winry said. "That's what you said."

"What _my_ Truth said was, 'the back door's over there.' He never opened Al's Gate. He probably didn't have a right to, anyway. It was Al's Gate, not mine. But when we needed to leave, Al's gate just opened for us."

"So you're saying I've still got my Truth inside me."

"Yup! And I think I've figured out how we managed it, too. Because when Father tried to 'hold down God' as he called it, he was basically trying to do the same thing. He tried to bring Truth back to earth with him. He had to use countless human lives to do it, too." Ed grimaced at the memory. "But we don't have to do that. Al is just holding Truth inside him, effortlessly. He doesn't even know he's there! And so I've figured out how that worked. When I sacrificed my Gate to get Al back, my Truth said 'take what you want'. I literally bought Al's Truth by destroying my Gate."

"I thought you said that your Truth didn't have power over my Gate." Al interrupted.

"Well, that's kind of nasty. I haven't quite figured that bit out yet, but I think my Truth may have used part of my payment to pay your Truth so that he would stay with you. It's like some kind of double transaction."

"Well, what does that mean for me?" Al asked hesitantly. "Do I have control over my own Gate?"

"Possibly. As your own gatekeeper, I wouldn't be surprised if you could open and close it at will. In fact, judging by the fact that Father pulled that stunt where he transported all of us to him by pulling us through our Gates, you could probably use yours to travel wherever you wanted. No equivalent exchange. You own the market. You call the shots. You own the Truth."

"I'm not sure I like that."

"Well, it's not as if you've become God or anything. We've already established that Truth isn't God. But you're more like dad was. He could bypass equivalent exchange because he has a philosopher's stone. You can bypass it because you are the person who does the exchange. It's like real life. The manager gets the best pay. The owner gets the best deals in his own shop. The dealer always wins at poker. That sort of stuff."

Ed looked around at his friends and family. "Well? That's what I've been up to. What do you think?"

"I think." Granny Pinako said, speaking for the first time, "that you're an idiot if you expect us to believe that that is all you've figured out."

Winry and Al looked at her, shocked. It seemed like quite a bit of information to them, especially after what now seemed to be such a short amount of time.

But Ed was grinning. "There may have been something else."

~End part 1

_Right, there it is. My extended headcanon. There is a second part that may come soon and may come in a while; depending on how much time I have to write (time is a struggle). Originally, I was going to have this play out into a full plot, but I'm starting to realize that that would be super complicated and I'd have to introduce a ton of OCs, many of whom are very near and dear to my heart so I'm not sure if I want to put them in here. I think I'll keep this to two parts and end it in kind of a Socratic dialogue kind of way, where everyone realizes that they still have a lot to learn about the world._

_Feel free to comment, and let me know if I've left any holes. I can not-so-subtly try and fill in any holes you notice in the next section. Though if you find a lot (which you probably will), I may not address all of them._


	2. Beyond the Gate

_A/N: So, here's part 2! It's a little farther-fetched than part 1, but I wanted to explore this topic._

_I'm really sorry that this took so long. I didn't expect to need so much time._

_Enjoy!_

"There may have been something else," Ed said, grinning. "Because, of course, Truth, or the Gatekeeper as we must now call him, is not the only thing I saw that day. Anyone care for a guess?"

Al looked at his brother in amazement. "Did you find out about the Gate, too?"

"You bet I did! At least, I've got some theories. Because think about it. If the Gatekeeper was me, and the Gate obviously _belonged_ to me, since I could sacrifice it, then there has to be some kind of connection. One of the key parts of this is the fact that when I sacrificed my Gate, the Gatekeeper dissolved with it. What can we assume from this? The Gatekeeper and the Gate are related quite a bit more than we originally thought.

"Now, although the Gatekeeper is another version of us, we can't control him, yes? However, seeing as the Gatekeeper is the one who opens and closes the Gate, we can assume that the Gatekeeper _can_ control the Gate. Meaning the relationship between the Gate and the Gatekeeper is different than the relationship between the Gatekeeper and us. Follow me?"

They nodded.

"Good. Here comes the key part. When I dissolved my Gate, the Gatekeeper said that by doing so I would no longer be able to use alchemy. Now, what can we get from this?" He looked around expectantly.

"That alchemy…comes from the Gate?" Winry offered hesitantly.

"Exactly! Alchemy comes from the Gate. So. The Gatekeeper does not exist simply to collect equivalent exchange or to ruin your life when you perform human transmutation. If alchemy comes from the Gate, and the Gatekeeper controls the Gate, or rather, _is_ the Gate, seeing as my Gatekeeper dissolved with my Gate, then alchemy must flow _out_ of the Gate, _through_ the Gatekeeper, _back_ through the Gate to me.

"What." Winry said.

Ed rolled his eyes again. "Now what do you not understand?"

"How can alchemy come out of the Gate, go through the Gatekeeper, then somehow reach you by going back into the Gate?"

"Well how else is it going to get to me? We've established that alchemy comes from the Gate, yes? Now, just a few minutes ago, we established that Al and I had to go through the Gate to get back to the real world. But when Al and I did human transmutation, we saw a side of the Gate that was most certainly not the real world. What can we assume from this? There's not simply one thing on the other side of the Gate. Not that this is surprising, really, it is quite an impressive Gate which seems to lead to nowhere, so really it shouldn't be too unbelievable to say that it doesn't necessarily act like a real Gate.

"So. The Gatekeeper pulls alchemy out of the Gate. Or does he? Does he pull it out of the Gate, or does he simply let it flow? Well think about it. What is more powerful: alchemy or me? It's a simple question. Obviously alchemy is more powerful. I can't just will the earth to move to my will, now can I? So it is more probable that the Gatekeeper lets alchemy flow out of the Gate and then leads it back through the Gate so it can reach me.

"The other interesting thing about this is that this means that every time we use alchemy, we are opening a portal to- wherever it is that the Gate is. I still have no idea what that place is.

"Now, a few minutes ago, I mentioned that the Gate appears to be a Gate to nowhere. Clearly, it goes somewhere, but that brings up the question: what is it a Gate _in_?"

Al broke in. "Brother, now your sentences just don't make sense."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Well, what I mean is, that when we talk about gates, there's always some kind of wall. It's the gate into the city, and the gate to the pasture, and the gate here, gate there. But there's always a wall somewhere. Just having a gate standing by itself is completely useless. Gates are meant to let you in and out of an enclosed area, right? So, what is the alchemy Gate a gate in?"

His question was met with blank stares.

"Well, I don't really know either. However, I did come up with something that could be a problem. I destroyed my Gate to save Al. I sacrificed it, and it dissolved. Now, the question is, if the Gate has to exist in some continuous wall that separates one place from somewhere else, then what's left where my Gate used to be?

"Did it just become more of the wall? Did it just kind of fade? Or maybe, it got destroyed. What if now, where there used to be a Gate, there's just a big gaping hole? There's nothing keeping what's inside in and nothing keeping what's outside out."

"But Brother," Al said slowly, "if the destruction of your Gate somehow left a hole leading to the place where Alchemy came from, then you would still be able to do alchemy, right?"

"I've considered that. But the thing is, if all we needed to use alchemy was the open hole, then why have the Gatekeepers? My theory is that the Gatekeepers were there to control the alchemy. To focus it as it came through the Gate so it would do what we wanted. That's why we need transmutation circles: they're instructions for the Gatekeeper. But once you do human transmutation, you don't need the instructions, because when you go through the Gate, you're basically programming the Gatekeeper with the instructions. That way you don't need to give him instructions anymore."

"But Ed," Winry interjected, "if you had a big gaping hole leading to boundless alchemic power just kind of leaking into your life, wouldn't there be some sign? Like Al said, you'd still be able to use alchemy. Or, if like you said you needed the Gatekeeper to focus it, wouldn't you still be doing alchemy, but kind of random, uncontrolled alchemy?"

"I am so glad you asked that question, Winry." Ed said, removing his gloves, "because that kind of has been happening. Now watch closely."

Placing his gloves on the table next to him, Ed took a deep breath. He placed his hands together, just as when he had clapped them together for his transmutations, and began to rub them together. He started out slowly, and then started to speed up.

Nothing happened for several long seconds. Al, Winry and Granny stared in silence while Ed focused all of his concentration on his hands. Then, ever so slightly, the space between his palms began to glow. A golden light seeped through, as well as strange, erratic noises that seemed to be a mixture of the sounds of everyday life and the buzzing hum of electricity. A few wisps of the golden light slipped out from between Ed's fingertips, briefly hanging in the air.

Then, with a flash and a bang, Ed was thrown backwards by some unknown force, his motion only stopped by the couch behind him.

"This is what I like to call pre-meditated seating arrangements." Ed said, laughing a little and rubbing his head. He stared at their shocked expressions and shrugged. "Obviously I haven't quite got the hang of it yet, but it'll come, with time. Even that was quite a bit better than the first time it happened, and that one was purely by accident.

"Anyway, that's not all that's been happening. Sometimes, I'll just be standing around, minding my own business, when suddenly I'll seem to be standing somewhere completely different. I'm always me, but sometimes I'm a different version of me. There was this one time where I was in the library researching when suddenly I was back training with Izumi, but I was a little older, and for some reason there was no alchemy, and she had other students. We would wave these sticks around and stuff started to float.

"Then this other time, I was riding the train, and suddenly I was dancing with Rose in this huge ballroom, and for some reason Rose seemed a little off or something. And there was this other girl there just kind of talking about random stuff. It probably would have made sense if I had known the context, but at the time it was all super surreal.

"But it's not always a different place. When I visited Hughes' grave while I was in Central, it was as if the time changed. I looked up and Mustang was standing there crying. He said something like 'It's starting to rain' and then I was just back to where- or when- I was supposed to be."

They all stared. Al was the first to break out of his shock.

"What will you do?"

Ed's smile faltered. "Honestly? I'm not really sure I should do anything. I mean, every time I've messed with the Gate, something bad has happened. They say curiosity killed the cat, and I'm not sure I want to act completely rashly. I'll let the visions come, maybe blow stuff up every once in a while. If I get better at it naturally, I'll just let it happen. But I don't plan to push it."

Al nodded. "In that case, I'll do the same. The idea of bypassing equivalent exchange sounds pretty good, but it would be completely foolish to try. I'm not one for being called a person who can't learn from his mistakes."

Ed grinned at his little brother. "Great idea. Now, why don't you help me unpack. I wrote down some notes, and even if we never use this information, I still want to get it down on paper. Maybe someone else will experiment with it."

He and Al walked innocently through the house, chatting calmly as they climbed the stairs to their bedrooms. Winry and Granny watched them go.

"So," Granny began, placing her hands on her hips as she watched the two boys disappear. "How long would you give them?"

"To go back on their promise of not experimenting with their new-found theories? Three days, tops."

"You give them too much credit. I'd say a day and a half."

Winry sighed. "Well, when they mess everything up, we'll be here. What they'd ever do without us is beyond me." She grinned down at her grandmother. "And when Ed does something stupid, he can count on me hitting him over the head."

Granny rolled her eyes. "And here I was thinking you just wanted to be helpful."

~End Part 2~

_So there it is! That's completely the end. I'm glad I got those theories out of my head. I just had to tell someone. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions about things I didn't clarify (sometimes I'm not very clear, I know), feel free to ask._


End file.
